Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881-1965: A HistoricalReview

Kevin MacDonaldDepartment of PsychologyCalifornia State University-Long BeachLong Beach, CA 90840-0901

Population and Environment

, in press.

Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881–1965: A HistoricalReviewABSTRACT

This paper discusses Jewish involvement in shaping United States immigration policy. Inaddition to a periodic interest in fostering the immigration of co-religionists as a result of anti-Semitic movements, Jews have an interest in opposing the establishment of ethnically andculturally homogeneous societies in which they reside as minorities. Jews have been at theforefront in supporting movements aimed at altering the ethnic status quo in the United States infavor of immigration of non-European peoples. These activities have involved leadership inCongress, organizing and funding anti-restrictionist groups composed of Jews and gentiles, andoriginating intellectual movements opposed to evolutionary and biological perspectives in thesocial sciences.

Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881-1965: A HistoricalReviewINTRODUCTION

Ethnic conflict is of obvious importance for understanding critical aspects of American history,and not only for understanding Black/White ethnic conflict or the fate of Native Americans.Immigration policy is a paradigmatic example of conflict of interest between ethnic groups becauseimmigration policy influences the future demographic composition of the nation. Ethnic groups unableto influence immigration policy in their own interests will eventually be displaced or reduced in relativenumbers by groups able to accomplish this goal.This paper discusses ethnic conflict between Jews and gentiles in the area of immigration policy.Immigration policy is, however, only one aspect of conflicts of interest between Jews and gentiles inAmerica. The skirmishes between Jews and the gentile power structure beginning in the late nineteenthcentury always had strong overtones of anti-Semitism. These battles involved issues of Jewish upwardmobility, quotas on Jewish representation in elite schools beginning in the nineteenth century andpeaking in the 1920s and 1930s, the anti-Communist crusades in the post-World War II era, as well asthe very powerful concern with the cultural influences of the major media extending from Henry Ford’swritings in the 1920s to the Hollywood inquisitions of the McCarthy era and into the contemporary era.That anti-Semitism was involved in these issues can be seen from the fact that historians of Judaism(e.g., Sachar 1992, p. 620ff) feel compelled to include accounts of these events as important to thehistory of Jews in America, by the anti-Semitic pronouncements of many of the gentile participants, andby the self-conscious understanding of Jewish participants and observers.The Jewish involvement in influencing immigration policy in the United States is especiallynoteworthy as an aspect of ethnic conflict. Jewish involvement has had certain unique qualities that havedistinguished Jewish interests from the interests of other groups favoring liberal immigration policies.Throughout much of this period, one Jewish interest in liberal immigration policies stemmed from adesire to provide a sanctuary for Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic persecutions in Europe and elsewhere.Anti-Semitic persecutions have been a recurrent phenomenon in the modern world beginning with theCzarist persecutions in 1881, and continuing into the post-World War II era in the Soviet Union andEastern Europe. As a result, liberal immigration has been a Jewish interest because “survival oftendictated that Jews seek refuge in other lands” (Cohen 1972, p. 341). For a similar reason, Jews haveconsistently advocated an internationalist foreign policy for the United States because “an